From Horseshoe Crabs to Moonbird

June 13’s full moon brings the living dinosaurs to a beach near you

By Emily Carter Mitchell

The Atlantic Flyway bird migration route passes over Chesapeake Bay. In the months of May and June, the full moon brings bright light to the sandy shores of the Bay, enticing horseshoe crabs to come and lay their eggs. These eggs mean new generations in more ways than one. Some develop into new crabs; migrating shore birds drop into the café to devour many others.
At dawn during May’s full moon, horseshoe crabs made shallow lumps in the surf at Sandy Point Park.
These amazing creatures are living dinosaurs. Like sharks, these sea animals have evolved very little over the 250 million years of their existence. With their helmet-like shells, they move faster in the water than seems possible.
This time of year, the females come to the surf’s edge. Males pile on top in hopes of fertilizing thousands of eggs laid in the sand. Then comes the red knot. This shore bird migrates over 9,300 miles from southern South America to the northern Arctic, making one of the longest migratory trips in the animal kingdom. Stopping along the shores of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bay, these birds depend on horseshoe crab eggs to continue their long journey.
Red knot populations declined as horseshoe crab harvests increased. Now the relationship between the red knot and the horseshoe crab is carefully watched by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Atlantic States Fisheries Commission. Harvest limits are set annually to restore red knot populations. Populations have stabilized, but the bird remains under review as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.
A red knot tagged B95 has been nicknamed Moonbird because he has flown the equivalent of the distance to the moon and halfway back during his lifetime of over 20 years. B95 inspired Phillip Hoose’s book Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95. This May 25, Moonbird was sighted on Reeds Beach, New Jersey by Patricia Gonzalez.